Teacher sues MEA after union gets tough over unpaid dues

Feb. 28, 2014

Written by

Detroit Free Press Staff

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s legal foundation filed a lawsuit Friday in Oakland County Circuit Court on behalf of a teacher who says the Michigan Education Association threatened to turn her over to a collections agency because she refuses to pay union dues.

The foundation said in the lawsuit that when the collective-bargaining agreement for teachers expired last June, recently enacted right-to-work rules went into effect and Susan Bank, a special education teacher, no longer needed to pay dues.

Those controversial right-to-work rules — passed during the lame-duck legislative session in 2012 — make it illegal to require financial contributions to a union as a condition of employment.

The Novi Education Association also was named in the suit.

MEA officials weren’t immediately available for comment. But they said in December that union bylaws for 40 years have required that members who want to quit their union membership do so in August.

The bylaws don’t have teeth now that right-to-work laws are in place, Patrick Wright, director of the legal foundation, said in a news release.

“It’s up to the MEA to collect the dues from each teacher and it’s the prerogative of each teacher to pay them or not,” Wright said.

The lawsuit said the MEA has notified Bank they intend to pursue collections.

“The Defendants’ threat of a legal action to compel Plaintiff’s payment of dues or fees that are not rightfully owed constitutes an attempt to restrain or coerce a public employee in her exercise of her right to withhold financial support from the union,” the lawsuit said.